Oddmanout84

I had to revive this. Very useful info. Only problem is that the pictures decayed and no longer appear on the thread. I've been looking for a good photo of the grease fittings you installed (Zerk? Zerg? Lol). Everyone seems to have a different name for them (they were called zert fittings on the boeing helicopters I worked on). Seems like a great idea for replenishing lubricating grease with minimal effort, and I'd honestly like to do it before assembling the suspension rather than waiting until it starts going bad down the road. Any chance someone still has the photos?

Nice car. Wish I could say mine was that clean and rust free. Even though it was a soCal car, it still aquired some patches of the brown rot. Rust will find its way into the worst places possible. My suggestion is to check the floor pans asap. Mine looked rust free, but you will find there is an annoying layer of tar "mats" (sound insulation?) under your carpet. That's where my worst patch of rust came from, and I was too late to save it. I need to cut out the floor pan on my passenger side now, and in the long term I want to completely remove all of it from the cabin. Also check in the front portion of your hood where the reinforcements are, use an inspection mirror to look inside those holes. There are miniscule patches of what looks like surface rust on mine, but I have no doubt its what's responsible for the small bubbles on the paint on the outer side. Funny thing is, I've been told that I have a gem on my hands as most of the cars in New England are much worse! Also good to hear your wiring is solid. Mine's been messed with by a long lineage of substandard mechanics and so far has been my biggest headache (besides rust). Keep up the good work, I can't wait to see some progress!

lowrider Z? Ewwwwww.....

Motorsport sells one for their Grant-made wheels: http://www.thezstore.com/

Well, I've gone into this myself expecting everything to be a pain so nothing suprises me too much... Not the most glamorous of jobs but I expect its worth the outcome.

well.... what if you know someone who has a factory that makes fiberglass parts for other vehicles...

So encouraging for our new Z enthusiast! Lol!!

I will be getting a set of tinted covers in the near future. I'll document the difference before I get a set of more powerful headlights.

This may be one of those late night "oh that's a great idea!" posts, but I was thinkin'..... What If I took all my body parts... ice cream scoops, fenders, all of it that I could... And made molds of them, and created new fiberglass bodyparts!! Good Idea?

Very true, for all the recent posts. I love this car to death, which I why she's stayed wrapped up in a cocoon at my parents house the entire time I was overseas. I have no intention of selling the car, unless my life depends on it. Unless they're in hiding somewhere, I have the only Z I know of in town. To put it simply, the car is Awesome. (70's marketing reference intended)

Looks like you're on the same boat as me, only you've got tokico springs, different dust boots, and my stuff is blue. Hopefully I can hold off buying the bump steer spacers until I get my new wheels though. Seems trivial to buy the 14" ones now and then have to get another set for the 17" wheels that I want to get.

uhhh... what? Isn't that a semi thing?

Oh yeah, and not long ago I was going down the same road looking at getting an RB or SR motor. If that's really your goal, look into the hidden costs of it. The motor alone is going to run you $1500 plus, and after that purchase you have to look into how much its going to cost for the mounts, wiring, electronics, etc to make it work. Great plan for down the road, but I'd familiarize yourself with the car first, and see what condition its in. Personally, even though I'm broke and barely scraping by for money right now, I think I made a better choice killing the rust, repainting the suspension and refurbishing it than I would have just buying an RB from here in the states and slapping it in the car. Maybe I shouldn't have bought the L28ET but it has a turbo and its shiny and I couldn't resist. Now it sits on the floor of my garage waiting. Insider tip: get out of highschool, join the military. Finagle your way into getting stationed in Japan. Buy an RB or SR over there and ship it home when you complete your tour. Much cheaper.

Since I got out of the military, I've spent the remaining two paychecks worth of money entirely on the car. Most of it has gone into purchasing tools, chemicals and paint. The remainder was spent on a suspension overhaul, a new front lip (late night purchase after one-too-many), performance coil (not installed), L28ET motor (not installed), rear disc brake conversion, and most recently a new exhaust system. I don't want to do the math in my head or even on paper, but I guess the figure is somewhere around $3000. All the work has been done by me, in my garage. The car used to run, but this year it aquired some strange electrical gremlin that's preventing spark. So as of now and the forseeable future, its on jacks in the garage. The car originally cost me $1600 and it was bought in California. There was no rust on it but a small amount of surface (that has changed since I moved it here). Since you're around the great lakes area, the concentration of road salts may be even higher than here in New England, so more than likely if you buy a Z you will have your work cut out for you in terms of killing the rust. Sure, you could ignore it and just slap on some aftermarket parts, save yourself a little money. But it will destroy all you've worked for in the car down the road. If you're into buying a Z as your first car, if you can find one over there, try to make preserving the body a priority. The car is decently quick enough to start out with, and once you've killed the rust (or at least made it dormant), then start making it a real beast! Hopefully you already have the tools or know of somewhere to borrow them, this will save you a lot. At that point you'll easily have a leg up on me.

Here's my setup: Stock, partially disassembled and sitting on the floor of my garage...

Nice. Hope all goes well for you the rest of the way.

You mean... this thing? I'm about to go through the ordeal myself. I've been using atlanticz's writeup for reference, and so far its helped me out pretty well. He says somewhere in there that he had to sand both bushings down a little in order to fit his in. I was also thinking of blasting mine with CO2 or freezing them a little, but I'm crossing my fingers that it will just fit on the first try!

Oh, I don't doubt its the same for you guys at all. It sucks doing things one way for years, then having to do the opposite. What I always wondered is; Why can't we all drive on the same side of the road? Who's idea was it to stick us on the left and vice versa. Seriously. We could have all been sitting comfortably on the tranny tunnel jockying a shifter between our legs like a fighter pilot. So much simpler. And then we could even have 3 seats in the front of a sportscar, room for one more girl. Lol. I guess that works!

That car and its engine scream awesome. Heck, if you didn't want the motor and I had the money, I'd surely offer to buy it off ya!

I think the purple one looks waaaay over the top personally. But whoever did it spent a lot of time and effort getting it there and did a pretty good job.

Well.... I suppose if you're keeping it for collectors' value, stay original. My opinion is just based on: -I'd make the car a daily driver/ at least drive it often -I'd be in the states -The ability to use drive-thrus and bank tellers at leisure -I hate shifting with my left arm... Hate it! It just feels so... weird...

Military personel leaving Okinawa sell their cars for cheaper than you'd imagine when they leave the island. However, I'd find it hard to believe you'd find an S30 over there for the same deal. While I was stationed there some local dude wanted to buy my car (LHD, and all the way back in the states) and import it for a large sum of money. They covet that car there. Even now back in the states I get the occasional person that comes up to me while I'm buying solvents and chemicals at Autozone offering me much more than I paid for my car. The prices for first gen Z's are going up, and I don't know if that's a good or bad thing. Some smart salesman could probably pull a decent profit selling an S30 with a shiny "JDM RHD!" label on it, especially after that anime starts picking up more speed in the states. Personally, its not my thing. Flame me all you want, but IF I had gone through with my plan to bring back a skyline from Oki, one of the first things I would have done was try to figure out how to convert it to LHD.

I appreciate the help. Although the thought of my struts naked to the elements does make me a little uneasy... Its bad enough that the boot made for my car is too wide at the bottom, not to mention the fact that its plastic which makes my job of cinching it even more difficult!

Ok, this will be my first question to the community, because frankly it has me stumped. Recently I've been taking apart my entire rear suspension to refurbish it and install some upgrades. Now that I've just about finished cleaning and painting all the rear components, its time for me to reassemble. This is where the question arises: my shock towers are both being fitted with KYB boots that have (non-integrated, two piece) bump stops. However, my Energy Suspension poly bushing package also came with 4 bump stops. I've seen some people here shave them down to smaller sizes, but my question is that if I already have bump stops on my dust boots, do I really need to put another bump stop in? I may be wrong, but it seems like it might be excessive, and that it may limit my suspension travel a bit too much. Is there any benefit to me slapping both in there on each strut, with me shaving the poly down or otherwise?

So the whole "possessed" Devil Z thing was a foreign object in the steering rack? Dude, Akio sucks as a mechanic...